Word: ecevit
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Demirel again replaces Ecevit, as the country founders
...Washington that the country continues to be plagued by endemic political instability, terrorist violence and serious economic problems. In no small measure, Turkey's fruitless search for stability can be traced to lurching shifts in leadership that involve the country's two top politicians, Bülent Ecevit, head of the Republican People's Party, and Suleyman Demirel, leader of the Justice Party. Last week, in a routine that has now become alarmingly familiar, Premier Ecevit's government was forced to step down after losing its majority in a by-election for five seats...
Meanwhile, Ecevit's government is still grappling with an outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in the past 18 months. The worst incident occurred in December, when 111 people were killed in a sectarian clash between the generally right-wing Sunni Muslims and the often left-leaning Shi'ite Muslims. An ardent civil libertarian, Ecevit reluctantly imposed martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces. Martial law was later extended to six eastern provinces to head off potential Kurdish unrest stimulated by the revolution in Iran...
...their parliamentary squabbling, Ecevit and Demirel are divided more by personal animosity than by ideology. Demirel, by profession an engineer, generally favors free-enterprise solutions. Ecevit, a poet and the son of a university professor, leans toward mildly socialist ones. Turkey's real problem, though, is that neither party is strong enough to govern effectively. Still, Ecevit sounded optimistic about his own political future and that of his strategically important country in an interview with TIME Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn...
...Said Ecevit: "There has been ample freedom in Turkey for 50 years. Those who oppose the regime here hanker for an authoritarian regime, whether of the right or the left. Because our people are attached to democracy [the extremists] cannot get support...